Waiting for Microsoft Access to Accept DDE Commands

[BAC]

I've got a word mail-merge main document that has worked for the last 6
months and today is giving me the above status bar message.

When I open the Word document, Access opens and I get the login screen for
my .mdw workgroup. After entering my UID & Password, I used to be prompted
for a date parameter for the underlying query..that no longer happens.

Access is open and I can get to the database window and run the query
manually. When I open Task Manager, the Application tab shows Access as
"Running" and Word as "Not Responding".

I have moved both the Access database and Word document to my local drive
(they were running on a network drive); verified that the "Enable DDE
Refresh" option is checked and the "OLE.DDE timeout (sec)" box is set for 10
seconds. The query behind the Mail Merge is an ODBC call which is active and,
as noted above, works when run in Access, but no longer runs when I open the
Word document.

I have reconstructed the query and the document from scratch, but I get the
"Waiting for ..." message after selecting the query in the Access database
(butr at least here I get beyond the .mdw.workgroup login..

Any ideas as to why this "connection" may no longer be working? I've run out
of ideas on where to look or what else to look for...The KB gave me nothing..

Thanx

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Can you convert the query to a make table query and then use that table as
the datasource.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Jeff G]

I have the same issue with word 2000 documents connected to both excel and
access files - hangs waiting for DDE after excel/access opens. I
verified/changed the same settings as you, as well as other settings from MS
KB, but no luck. I can create new mail merges against other data source
types, just cannot use DDE any more.

My main problem is there are dozens of word documents that won't even open
now - word locks up waiting, so I can't even go in to the word file to even
switch to a different data source type - so all my templates / documents are
unusable. How were you able to get around this? I just need at minimum some
way of getting around this so I can get into those word files.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[Jeff G]

I did a complete re-install of Office 2000, and now DDE works (doing
reinstall-repair did not fix problem). Now just a question of how long this
will work before it breaks again. I guess I better switch over my merges to
use something other than DDE? Pretty sad that this highly used way of
working is so unstable.